![]() ![]() In a statement released after the decision, PETA said its lawyer, David Schwarz, “argued brilliantly. If they think animals should have the right of copyright they’re free, I think, under the Constitution, to do that.” “This is an issue for Congress and the president. Speaking from the bench, Orrick said he wasn’t the correct person to decide the issue of whether animals can or should hold copyrights, or who should have legal protection over artistic creations made by animals. The US Copyright Office has said Slater can’t be considered the legal owner of the rights to those images, because copyright protections cannot be extended to works “produced by nature, animals, or plants,” according to ARS Technica. Orrick said he would dismiss the suit in an as-yet-unpublished order and called PETA’s case “a stretch.” In what is, by all accounts, a novel case and not one trying to overturn any previous rulings or laws, District Judge William Orrick in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, in San Francisco, ruled that a six-year-old Indonesian macaque monkey cannot own the rights to a series of selfies he snapped after grabbing camera gear owned by David Slater, a British nature photographer who was traveling through the Indonesian jungle at the time.Ī lawsuit was filed on behalf of the monkey, called Naruto, by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had argued that Naruto’s rights were infringed upon when Slater published the images on his publishing platform, Blurb, and therefore Naruto was owed monetary damages. While we might share evolutionary ancestors, monkey aren’t people and therefore can’t be awarded copyright protections from photos they take, a judge in California determined. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |